She had been sentenced to die in 1990 for the beating death of her 80-year-old husband, Bill Jennings.

Superior Court Judge Wayland Sermons ruled that Jennings had received poor legal counsel at the time of her trial. Her attorneys failed to ask that jurors consider she had no significant criminal history.

Jennings' attorneys agreed to drop a separate claim that the State Bureau of Investigation concealed favorable lab results and used false and unreliable evidence to get her conviction and death sentence.